December 16, 2011

U Of Iowa Faculty Member Takes Heat For Article About Iowa

Professor Stephen Bloom of the University of Iowa with his new article published Friday on the Atlantic’s website has sparked an online flap over what qualifies as an accurate, honest portrayal of Iowa’s culture and economy today and whether our state with its 1,784 precinct caucuses deserves to begin to choose the nation’s next president on Jan. 3. The New Jersey native’s “Observations from 20 Years of Iowa Life” includes this gem: “Those who stay in rural Iowa are often the elderly waiting to die, those too timid (or lacking in educated) to peer around the bend for better opportunities, an assortment of waste-toids and meth addicts with pale skin and rotted teeth, or those who quixotically believe, like Little Orphan Annie, that ‘The sun’ll come out tomorrow.’” Debate has raged in story comments on the Atlantic’s site, across Facebook and Twitter and in blog rebuttals such as Rebecca McKanna’s. Readers have seen different levels of screed or satire, tough love or sloppy generalizations in Bloom’s assessment. Read more at:http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2011/12/12/iowas-scuzzy-mississippi-river-towns-and-keokuk-slums/